Big problems with the apostle Paul: please stop calling him a saint
Just how did the apostle Paul become convinced that Jesus was the key to salvation? He assured one of his congregations that he heard this news directly from Jesus himself, in a heavenly vision:
“For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin, for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12)
Not of human origin. How many hundreds—indeed thousands—of supposedly religious people have made such claims? They are so confident that they received their information about god(s) directly from god(s). And they have been successful in getting followers to believe them, because there has been an absence of curiosity/critical thinking. This has been such a common phenomenon in human history. It doesn’t occur to these followers to ask for evidence, verification. “This guy is promising eternal life—he must have insider knowledge—so let’s sign up.”
But following this path presents major problems for Christianity. Why in the world should anyone take Paul’s claims seriously? Let’s just consider what we find in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, chapters 1 and 13.
This letter has been extensively pondered, analyzed, and commented on by Christian theologians. Joseph A. Fitzmyer’s Anchor Bible volume on Romans is 793 pages; Douglas J. Moo’s commentary is 1,012 pages; the one written by Leon Morris is 578 pages; Ben Witherington III’s, which is titled Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, is 421 pages. Would that title be appealing to the folks in the pews? The opening sentence of the Introduction undermines—it seems to me— any claim that Romans is the result of divine inspiration. Why would god have inspired a formidable discourse?
“Embarking on a study of Romans is rather like beginning a long journey—it requires a certain amount of preparation, patience, and faith, as the goal of understanding this formidable discourse is not reached for a considerable period of time.” (p. 1)
Well yes, but the bad things about Romans chapters 1 and 13 aren’t that hard to figure out. This long epistle is a formidable discourse because Paul rambled on so much of the time, voicing his bad theology and crazy ideas. Devout scholars do their best to account for the bad and crazy things—and they write for each other. I suspect that very few churchgoers have actually read Paul’s letter to the Romans carefully and critically, and fewer have read, or are even aware of the lengthy commentaries I mentioned above.
Bad Things in Chapter 1
· Promoting the superiority of faith.
This has been a constant gimmick of religions. Paul sums it up:
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is God’s saving power for everyone who believes [or trusts], for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’” (vv. 16-17)
In other words, there is no need to ask for evidence, no need to ask: “How do you know for sure about the god who has spoken directly to you?” Paul claims that his followers will be okay if they muster the faith/trust to accept his superior wisdom. How do folks know that their spiritual leaders are correctly tuned into god, while thousands of leaders of other cults are not? No surprise, by the way: Ben Witherington III includes “faith” in his short list of virtues needed to understand Romans.
· Claiming that god is obvious.
“Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been seen and understood through the things God has made.” (v. 20)
This is a matter of seeing what you want to see, but ignoring so much else that is going on. Paul knew the Hebrew Bible well enough to grasp that Yahweh had a violent temper, and could issue horrible commands. Hey, that’s what his god was like. But the wonderful things that his god had made were evidence of his “eternal power and divine nature.” Perhaps Paul would have attributed disease, storms, volcanoes—and so many other natural calamities—to his god’s nasty temper. Serious thinkers today can see that horrendous human suffering seriously weakens any claims that god is good and caring; nor does creation provide evidence for his “eternal power and divine nature.”
· Paul’s raging about same sex love.
“…God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Their females exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the males, giving up natural intercourse with females, were consumed with their passionate desires for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.” (vv. 26-27)
We can suspect that Paul was alarmed at the idea that he himself had sexual desires. In 1 Corinthians 7:1 he suggests that it is good for a man not to touch a woman. And he goes on to write this:
“To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.” (vv.8-9)
This might qualify as one of the dumbest lines in the Bible. Did Paul truly believe that once people are married they are no longer aflame with passion? He does appear to be clueless.
The last verse of chapter 13, by the way, is this: “…put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (v. 14) Paul might have said—although he probably wasn’t fond of slang—“Better to be holy than horny.”
Same-sex attraction and love are now well understood in our time, in the wake of extensive study and research. The religious abhorrence and intolerance have no basis in fact.
· Paul’s list of people who deserve to die.
The chapter closes with another rant. Paul offers a list of people who deserve to die:
“…gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, yet they not only to them but even applaud others who practice them.” (vv. 29-32)
Gossips, rebellious kids, and foolish people deserve to die? Of course, the clergy commonly avoid quoting this text, but instead try to make Paul look good with this quote:
“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (I Corinthians 13:4-7)
We can conclude that Paul had his good days and bad days, good moods and bad moods. But it was not a good thing that his poisonous rants ended up as scripture. He falls far short of being a saint.
A Bad Thing in Chapter 13
· A big oops about government.
In 13:1-7 we find Paul’s proclamation that governments are based on divine plan: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.” (v. 1)
Paul might have added this long praise of government in case this letter had fallen into hands of censors or inspectors.
But these verses are the big problem: “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will have its approval, for it is God’s agent for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the agent of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.” (vv. 3-4)
It seems clear from this that Paul was unaware of the story about the Roman authorities executing Jesus. But this is no surprise: In all of Paul’s letters we find very little evidence that he knew much at all about the life and ministry of Jesus. He brags that his knowledge of Jesus came from heavenly visions. The gospel accounts were written well after Paul had died, so he was unaware of the famous Jesus stories we are familiar with.
Devout scholars like to claim that reliable oral tradition was used by the gospel authors, but there is no evidence that Paul was aware of it. Even if it existed, Paul was focused on bringing the message of salvation through Jesus to a gentile audience. He was proud of the fact that his beliefs about Jesus were not based on human sources.
And we are left to ponder this question: Indeed, was there reliable oral tradition? How reliable could it be if it had been repeated by dozens or hundreds of people for decades? The gospels are full of magical/miracle folklore and superstitions. Their authors were committed to promoting the Jesus-cult. I highly recommend Chapter 10 in Richard Carrier’s book, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, pp. 387-506, in which he discusses the mythologies of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. We can find little evidence that they knew what was required for writing history. They don’t deserve to be called historians, any more than Paul deserves to be called a saint.
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes:
· Guessing About God (2023)
· Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also available.
· Everything You Need to Know About Prayer But May Not Want to Admit (2025)
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.
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